Soylent Green

Is it just me? I find myself having to ask that question on a regular basis because what passes for real in these post-truth, fake news days can’t really serve as a reality check.

But I’ve been thinking lately about our food supply, big business (agribusiness in this particular case) and the end game. Capitalism with a capital “C” meaning unchecked, unregulated, run-amok style of the beast that is devouring us whole, has as one of its more heinous trademarks the tendency to destroy the resources necessary to snare the market it seeks, as heedless of the inescapable results as a snake eating its own tail.

When applied to our food supply, it means things like over-fishing our oceans to the extinction of fish; pumping our livestock full of hormones and antibiotics then feigning surprise when the consuming public is beset by cancers and antibiotic-resistant plagues; adding corn and fat and dairy products to things in great abundance, then watching their customers get fatter and sicker by the minute.

And it’s a cycle: the government subsidizes industries that should be vital to our health – you know, like as in food – to create food-like substances which are then marketed to fast food conglomerates at ultra low prices which are then bombarded by the media to the consuming public who then does the one thing we have all been programmed to do – consume without question.

Just as an aside, have you ever noticed that the two biggest advertiser types are fast food and pharmaceuticals? Whatever misery you can’t eat away -- there’s a pill for that.

But back to our food-like substance supply. What I can’t figure out is -- what’s the end game? I mean, okay, this faux food cycle runs its course and we’re all fat and sick, and then we can’t work so we can’t buy the pills that will make us (supposedly) better and we die off and we’re no longer able to fulfill our prime directive to consume. How does that help big business? I’m not sure they’ve thought that far ahead.

Or if they have you’d better watch out for soylent green – coming to fast food joints everywhere.